The 5 Most Terrifying Rites of Passage from Around the World

Most cultures attach a special significance to reaching puberty, whether it's celebrated with a bar mitzvah, a first Holy Communion or your dad buying you your first six-pack. Then again, there are some cultures out there that still don't consider it a real rite of passage unless it involves something so gruesome that most of us wouldn't do it as adults. For instance ...

#5. Mentawai Girls File Their Teeth into Points

Look, we know that different cultures have different standards of beauty, and one culture's George Clooney is another culture's Mike Biernhaus (he's a really ugly guy who lives near the office, you don't know him). So it gives many of us hope to think that somewhere there might be some remote Amazon tribe that considers the beer gut and neck-beard combo irresistible. Don't tell us it's impossible; after all, the Mentawai tribe of Indonesia think that having pointed, daggerlike teeth is the epitome of sexy.

brommel.net"My rotting, razor-sharp dental work brings all the boys to the yard ..."

The Mentawai are so convinced that pointed teeth are more attractive than flat that the men would probably be more interested in your canines than your cleavage. And for the women of the tribe, it means that once they reach adulthood, it's time to have their teeth chipped away and filed down to points, because how else will they catch the eye of a potential husband?

As you might expect, having someone hack at your pearly whites with a hammer and chisel wasn't exactly a pleasant experience, and the process left the teeth damaged and prone to infection. Sexy infection.

The process is less common these days, since the march of Western culture has pushed out a lot of obscure tribal traditions in favor of cigarettes and HBO, but high-ranking females like the wives of tribal chiefs still prefer to have the procedure done, because nothing says "status symbol" like the ability to cleanly bite the head off a small mammal.

#4. Boys of the Fulani Tribe Whip the Crap Out of Each Other

Hey, remember when your whole family gathered to watch you and another kid from the next neighborhood beat the living shit out of each other with whips while everyone cheered? And then nobody called the cops? If so, you probably grew up among the North African Fulani tribe (or in certain parts of Jersey).

But it's not just the boys who have all the fun in Fulani culture. In the spirit of gender equality, girls have their own coming-of-age ritual to endure, which involves receiving an elaborate facial tattoo like little pubescent Mike Tysons. Once again, it's important to the ritual for the girl to show no discomfort during the hours-long session of being stabbed in the face. Because that's the kind of thing that only a child would do.

#3. Maasai Boys Hunt Lions

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For most of us, the most stressful thing about our transition into adulthood was asking someone to the prom. In other words, the worst case scenario was that you could have your heart ripped out figuratively. Young warriors of the Maasai tribe in Kenya were less lucky. That's because an important coming-of-age ritual for young Maasai hunters for centuries was hunting lions. As in fully grown, male, flesh-ripping lions.

Getty"Haven't you seen The Lion King? I'm friendly enough to just walk right up and pet."

Now, if you asked us to choose an appropriate weapon to hunt a fully grown lion with, we'd probably pick the world's longest-range sniper rifle or, ideally, a predator drone. But the Maasai chose to take on Mufasa with nothing but a spear and a rawhide shield. The objective was to steal the lion's tail, which was the surest sign of a badass. And, you know, it's kind of hard to argue with that.

Also, just to ensure that the lion was nice and pissed off, young warriors had to wear special bells on their legs in order to annoy the beast. Unsurprisingly, the mortality rate for attacking the king of the Serengeti with nothing more than a sharp stick and youthful enthusiasm was pretty high.

Getty"All those raging hormones make the meat really tender."

In recent years, though, the Maasai elders have discouraged solo hunting, and instead the young men will now do it in groups of about 10 or so. We should clarify that they didn't decide this out of concern for the hunters' safety -- it's that lion populations have dropped so much that there's no longer enough lion to go around.